The simple fact is that if we want to live in an information society, we need the plumbing to support it. That is perhaps the most salient observation that the New York Times has made — there really is no cloud, just more and more really big data centers.

Forget disaster recovery. In today's world of 24x7x365 global operations and competition, I&O teams must deliver services that are designed for uptime but prepared for failures. Learn how to build the always-on, always-available extended enterprise with Forrester's new Business Technology Resiliency Playbook.

Your company is already using cloud services whether you like it or not, and trying to reverse history isn't an option. Encourage cloud consumption the right way by creating a policy that brings cloud use into the light where it can be monitored, managed and made better.

It should come as no surprise that websites thrive on traffic. So naturally, it follows that driving traffic to your site is a strong motivation for any company looking to grow their web presence. However ironically, driving traffic to your site can also be a double-edged sword if your infrastructure is not properly prepared to handle the load.

It's time for the CIO to take control of the disparate social initiatives and create a uniformed strategy that lays out the necessary people, process, and technology changes to make a social business work. But how do you get there?